Rushroom
by lemoncelloismyname
Summary: A short excerpt from the life of Zelda at the beginning of her partnership with Link, when things were far less than cordial between the two of them. Pre-BotW, with no major spoilers.


Zelda estimated herself to be about a third away up the cliff when she heard the telltale sounds of hooves battering along the stone path below her. She firmly ignored them of course, frowning slightly and furrowing her brow in concentration as she determinedly fixed her gaze on the purple prize above her instead.

"Princess," called a voice from below her, and her brow only creased further as she began to climb even faster up the sheer face of rock.

"Princess," said the voice again, with an uncharacteristically urgent edge to its tone. "What are you doing?"

"It's a rushroom," she responded absently. "While they're not exactly rare, they prefer to grow on steep cliff faces, which makes them very hard to obtain and therefore impossible to get in the castle. When cooked they're known to have some form of speed-enhancing effect, but I've never got to see it for myself because they're so hard to come by."

"You need to come down, Princess," her guardian replied, the worry in his voice only growing with each syllable, and it suddenly occurred to Zelda that this was the most she had ever heard him speak.

She reached a miniscule ledge and hauled herself up on to it, before finally looking down to the ground below.

Zelda felt her stomach drop slightly as she stared down at the swaying ground below. Link was but a tiny speck in the distance - an ant - and she was like one of the Divine Beasts in comparison. The ground swayed, and she stumbled away from the edge, hands grasping frantically at the smooth rock wall at her back, desperately searching for something to cling on to.

"Are you alright, Princess?" Link called quietly.

She froze, taking a couple of slow, deep breaths before schooling herself. She was being stupid, she told herself, it was a well known phenomenon for people to believe that they were higher off the ground than they were, and she would not let herself fall prey to it.

"I'm fine," she responded nonchalantly, but with a steel edge to her tone, "so you can leave now. I do not need your protection."

As usual, he disregarded her personal orders in favour of doing what she knew her father would have no doubt commanded him to do. "Stay there," he instructed her, before beginning to climb up after her.

She watched with a thin scowl etched on her face as he scaled the wall with apparent ease, taking about a quarter of the time to reach the ledge as it had taken her. When he arrived, her annoyance only deepened when she noticed him running his eyes over her body, assessing her for any injuries, a habit of his that drove her insane.

"I do not need a babysitter, you know," she stated imperatively. "I am more than capable of handling myself."

Link said nothing, which clearly meant that he doubted her, however a sudden crash saved her from having to think of a response, and without warning the heavens opened, sending buckets upon buckets of rain lashing down upon them both. Zelda swore loudly, hurriedly scrambling to sit with her back pressed firmly against the cliff face in order to garner as much shelter as possible from its looming steepness. Beside her, Link had done the same, so that the two now sat uncomfortably close together, rain pelting in their faces, both hugging their legs tightly against their chests.

"We have to find shelter," Zelda said, yelling to be heard over the sound of the lashing rain. "We'll be drenched to the bones if we sit around here for much longer."

"You can't climb down like this," Link pointed out. "It's far too slippy when it is wet."

He was right obviously, but that only angered her further. "If you are to scared to climb down in the rain that is fine," she replied haughtily. "I, on the other hand, have better things to do with my time than sit around on a ledge and get soaked through whilst waiting for the weather to clear up."

And with that, she started forward for the edge of the ledge, only to be stopped again as a worn hand gripped tightly around her wrist. Her head snapped up in shock, and her startled emerald eyes were met with Link's silently intense glare, his face mere inches are from her own. "I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that, Princess," he said, his voice agonisingly neutral, almost robotic, and she shivered slightly as she felt his warm breath caressing her face.

"Let go of me!" she hissed, snatching her hand away from his. "How dare you, a commoner, touch me, the Princess, in such a way!?"

She knew that he was far from being a commoner - his father had been a knight before he was, after all - and she also knew that he knew that she knew that, and yet he chose not correct her, instead simply continuing to observe her with his fearsomely blank stare.

And when he didn't respond, didn't defend himself, she all but lost it. "Say something!" she practically snarled in his face, furiously. "Anything! I know you hate me, I want to hear you say it! I can't stand this freakish silence of yours. There must be some sort of personality in there somewhere!"

Her words hung in the air long after she had finished saying them, her anger made even more obvious by its contrast to his painful stillness.

Link sighed. "I don't hate you, Princess," he murmured eventually, so quiet that she could barely hear him over the steady barrage of the rain.

Zelda slumped miserably back against the cliff face. "Liar," she accused, but it was a half-hearted jab at best, and certainly failed to provoke a response. She eyed the end of their little ledge with a renewed curiosity. While the thought of loosing her grip while scrambling down again was far from appealing, it still seemed better that the alternative of being stuck up here with _him_. Or perhaps she could just skip the climb altogether, and risk the broken leg by jumping. She had seen people survive far greater falls, after all, and they really were not that high up off the ground.

Her contemplation was interrupted by Link, however, when he jumped to his feet and began to climb up the rock face behind them.

"What are you doing!?" Zelda heard herself cry. "You just said yourself that it's far too dangerous to climb in the rain!"

Now it seemed that it was Link's turn to ignore her, and he did so with his usual diligence, hurriedly scrambling up the rock wall as if his life depended on it. He had already demonstrated how skilled a climber he was earlier, and yet Zelda watched with her heart in her mouth as he barely managed to maintain his hold on the slippery surface.

It felt like a century had passed before he finally reached the long forgotten mushroom perched innocently upon the cliff face, and he reached out and plucked it off before releasing his hold on the rock and allowing himself to simply fall back to where she stood. (When had she stood up?)

He landed with a practiced, easy grace that made her heart seethe with jealousy, and she firmly ignored the flutter of relief she felt in her stomach. He straightened himself up, and casually held out her- no, his prize now, offering it to her with no more than a detached submission.

He said nothing, as per usual, but the burning look in his eyes almost seemed to be snarling _Here's your stupid rushroom_.

Zelda snatched the offending purple fungus from his hands, glowering at him silently in response. Two could play that game, after all.

-end-

AN: Apologies if Zelda seems too hostile, this thing wrote itself without really stopping to ask my opinions! Hope everyone enjoyed :)


End file.
